The Editors’ Letter

Sometimes we feel less free in Sarajevo than elsewhere.  

The walls built within us and between us have been constructed by many forces: culture, religion, and politics (patriarchal, all three) certainly among them.  Limitation shapes our everyday habits and the spaces we inhabit everyday;—You can taste it.

In such surroundings, there’s no option other than continuing to chase that freedom to live beautifully and as one desires.  To search for those places and people that allow and encourage us to determine who we are and what we do. 

That is why we have written about times and spaces in which we were free, at least for a moment.  Places like Medika and DKC INCEL, or within the circle of women that stitched “Drugaricama” into a banner honoring the Women’s Antifascist Front.  Why we have published a poem about the intimate freedom of flirtation (Bondarev) and why we have continued to publish art, graffiti and art that reminds us to keep going.  

Because there is a cost to creating the spaces—and the art—that makes us feel free.  Indeed, this magazine has cost the two of us much; time with and attention to our families, hours we could have spent making money, and that quietness in which nothing has to be done.  Everybody who features in this magazine has made similar sacrifices; as Marina Mimoza says about the Mostar Street Art Festival, “niko ne živi od festivala, ali si živimo za festival.”

There will always be people who live to create freedom for themselves and others. 

— Adrian and Nina

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